


Space Coffee Grounds

by Anonymous



Category: Stellar Firma (Podcast)
Genre: Awkward Sex, Canon-Typical Trexel Geistman, Explicit Consent, Fade to slightly sticky black, He/Him Pronouns for David 7 (Stellar Firma), I apologise, Nonbinary David 7 (Stellar Firma), Other, References to Monty Python, Security Alerted (Stellar Firma), look somebody was going to write this ship eventually or the universe would fall out of balance, not beta read we die like the majority of stellar firma clones, not fuckbuddies bc they're not friends but also not angry Or romantically intended. fuckassociates?, so I decided it would be me., the whole Stellar Firma society viewpoints situation re: clones still applies though so ymmv
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-16
Updated: 2020-09-16
Packaged: 2021-03-06 21:47:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26145874
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: David asks Trexel about a new hobby he wants to pick up.(TREXEL: For coffee, and also… "for coffee".DAVID: Why did you do the thing with your eyebrows?TREXEL: The coffee is also sex, do you understand?DAVID: O- oooh!TREXEL: You see.DAVID: So it’s when you want to say sex, but feel you can’t say sex.TREXEL: Exactly, you’ve got it, David.- Episode 2: 'Studs and Blood'transcript)
Relationships: David 7/Trexel Geistman
Comments: 4
Kudos: 36
Collections: Anonymous





	Space Coffee Grounds

**Author's Note:**

> **additional warnings** : the pairing itself; Trexel Geistman; mentions of the feet incident with Hartro that aren't portrayed as funny; descriptions of e-smoking and cigarettes; canon-typical references to depression and existential dread w/ David.

David 7 was at seated at his pod desk, considering, when the door in the wall _wooshed_ open and Trexel stumbled into the sales room.

For a moment they both just gawked at each other. Despite the fact that he was the very man David had been thinking about, he’d never expected him to show up so soon. It was barely five hours into their scheduled workday.  
David recovered himself first. “Trexel!”  
Trexel glared at him, though he may have just been wincing from his semi-permanent headache . “Stop staring at me!” He snapped, waving his hand vaguely. “And who turned these suns on so much? Where _am_ I--? This isn’t the Supernova Licensed Restaurant And Patio at all. Who the bloody hell are you? And _you_?”

Blinking through all of that, David decided to address it in reverse order. “Uh-- well, I’m David 7? There’s only one of me here. You’re in the... our? Sale’s consultancy room. Or, you’re at the door to my pod, but you’re _mostly_ in the sales consultancy room. The suns are lights, you can just ask I.M.O.G.E.N to turn them off probably-- and you wouldn’t notice _I_ was staring if you weren’t _also_ staring!” That last point turned into a bit of a victorious crow.

“Board damn it! You’re _right._ ” Trexel seemed put off, but he finally got out of the doorway.

He swayed backwards with the catastrophic grace of the very hungover, doing a half-spin around the management desk, and coming to a collapse in the chair. He blinked up at the ceiling with visible pain, then cleared his throat. “Decrease lights, I.M.O.G.E.N!” The lights shut most of the way off. Trexel sighed in satisfaction. “Thank you. And _shut up_ , David. I’m trying to have a nap. Didn’t your _parents_ tell you never to interrupt a man when he’s trying to have an honest nap?”

“I have no idea,” David said dryly. “I don’t have parents and you’ve never been honest.”  
“What?! That’s... well, alright. That’s entirely true.”  
David nodded, deciding he would take that victory as well. He cleared his throat. “Trexel, I need to ask you something.”  
“Ah!” Trexel’s eyes flew open, and he leaned forwards to rest his elbows on the desk with a grin. “Of course. Come to old Trexel Geistman for instruction. What can I do for you, clone?”  
“Don’t—” David grit his teeth. He took a deep breath, waited three seconds, then let it out. “I was just thinking.”  
“Well, that’s bad. Dangerous pass time right there.”  
“Yes, I know. But _what_ I was thinking was that, um, about the stad farms back in the planet design days. I know,” he added quickly because he could see Trexel puffing up like a space-frog with indignation at David mentioning the first couple weeks of his life, “I know we’re not there anymore. But I was thinking especially about the blood sports holovisions with the, you know, sexy wrestling and sexy arson and sexy... sex.”  
“Reasonable, reasonable. That was a good planet we made! I even--”  
“So my question was,” David continued hurriedly as Trexel continued to speak over him. “Would, uh-- Board, be _quiet_ for a second, Trexel-- would you like to have sex with me?”

Amazingly, Trexel went quiet. There. David noted it for potential future use; though, he guessed wryly, it would likely only work once.  
I.M.O.G.E.N. chimed from the wall. “ _Fraternization_ _offer_ _detected. Security alerted._ _Also: yikes._ ”  
Trexel’s eyebrows went over his first pair of sunglasses. “I’m, um. I’m going to need you to explain that a bit more, David.”  
“Really? I thought it was quite clear--”  
“ _I’m_ the consultant here, David!” Trexel snapped, “I get to decide when a questions clear or not.” He rubbed the side of his head exasperatedly, with a loud sigh. For a moment there wasn’t any sound in the consultancy room except the gentle clacks of space-plastic nudging together. “Go on.”  
“... alright, well. I guess it was too much to hope this would be easy,” David muttered to himself.  
“What did you say?!”  
“Nothing! Nothing. Just clearing my throat.” He coughed for emphasis. “A bit space-dusty in here.”  
“Ah, yes. That’ll be all the mould spores. Get on with it, David.”  
“I-- that’s gross. So, I was thinking about the stad farm designs—”  
“Got that one, yes.”  
“-- and how you explained to me what sex was--”  
“Oil and recriminatory, of course.”  
“-- right, and you mentioned gender too, when we started brainstorming with the holovision. I'm still really not interested in gender. But sex did sound interesting. And so I wondered, recently, because I was bored, if you’d like to have sex with me, specifically. To, uh-- to pass the time.” His internal clone clock kept ticking towards the end of the workday, but David had learned not to expect Trexel at all for another two and a half hours. This was practically free time.

They stared at each other blankly. Trexel cleared his throat and tapped his fingers. I.M.OG.E.N remained silent.

David blinked first, metaphorically. (His eye goo meant his eyes were lubricated pretty constantly, so literal blinking was non-essential.) “Look, Trexel, I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable,” he said. It was true, though David felt a bit bitter saying it out loud, since Trexel made him extremely uncomfortable about pretty much everything all of the time. “We don’t have to do anything if it’s too... weird. You can go back to drinking.”

Trexel seemed to consider this very hard. Then he shook his head. “Thank you, David, but I think I might’ve had enough drinking for this morning.” (It was nearly mid-afternoon.) “I’ll go back to the Astral Bar in a couple hours, first I need to ask-- why?”  
“W-- why sleep with me?”  
“Why are you asking _me._ You don’t even like me!”  
He couldn’t really deny that. “Is-- do you need to like someone to have sex with them?”  
Trexel had listed a few reasons why beings had sex, and liking each other was certainly one of them, but it hadn’t seemed like a pre-requisite. Especially with all the crying and recrimination sex apparently ended by.  
On this, Trexel wavered. “Well... not exactly, no. It can of course help with the process-- you know, comfort, and whatnot-- but overall no. All you need to have sex is enthusiastic consent of all parties involved, and some genitals. And opportunity, I suppose. And motive.”  
“You’re making it sound like murder.”  
“David, David. David. What did I tell you last time? Violence is sexy to some people! That’s why ninety-nine-point-something or other percent of holovids exist!”

“... right.” David sighed. “Well, you know my motive now, and we theoretically have opportunity. Do you want to, ‘mash genitals’ together with me or not, Trexel?”  
Trexel’s nose crinkled in a frown. “I-- well, I mean, we _could,_ but. Why not start with just, you know. A kiss. What’s wrong with a _kiss,_ David? We don’t have to go leaping right for the genitals.”  
“We don’t?”  
“Not even a little. Actually, sexy leaping is discouraged unless you’re in some kind of low-gravity rig or a trained gymnast which, David, I’m fairly certain you are _not_ , unless--” And his eyes narrowed under his three sets of sunglasses. “Unless you’ve been engaging in more _hobbies_ that I haven’t been made aware of?!”  
“No hobbies!” David yelped, leaning back on the slurrinator chair and holding his hands in front of him defensively. “No untowards time-passing. Of any sort.”  
“Hm. And you’re _sure_?”  
“Very sure.”  
“Hmph.” Trexel leaned back in his chair and squinted at the ceiling. He kicked his be-onesied feet up onto the desk, which David made a small noise of disgust at and leaned away from prudently. There were a lot of things a clone didn’t want to see, and most of them were on the underside of his supervisor’s shoes.

David tried again. “If you wanted, you could consider my interest a kind of hobby. A completely... not alert-warranted one. Involving zero corners.”

There were a lot of things that David had no idea about, which his birth programming had left vague or entirely unmentioned. Sex was one of them. I.M.O.G.E.N’s databases has helped a bit, including descriptions of sex for an honestly overwhelming number of species including humans. They were all rather mechanical, though, and didn’t explain the feeling that pictures of near-shirtless Bathin had given David, back when he’d first discovered his universal permissions and was able to get around the Stellar Firma company blocks. He’d been figuring it out pretty well on his own by clone’s instinct.

But he still wanted to learn firsthand, so to speak; and Trexel was the only person he ever really spoke with. (Apart from Harto, but, good _Board_ no. Trexel was better than her. If only because if he was, hypothetically, in Trexel’s arms, he could far more easily imagine that they were Bathin’s.)  
He had the distinct feeling that if he said this out loud, I.M.O.G.E.N would send another security alert for _emotional starvation._

It took long enough for Trexel to reply that David thought he’d forgotten what they were talking about, or passed clean out in his office chair. He’d resigned himself to having an hour nap and then shaking Trexel awake at twenty to client-meeting-time and forgetting the whole conversation ever happened.

Then Trexel refixed his sunglasses and didn’t so much sit up as throw his feet back onto the floor. “Yes. Well! Fine!”  
“Fine?”  
“Well. Yes,” Trexel said more decisively. He stood from his side of the desk. “If you’re so insistent on this, David, then I’ll go and-- find some supplies. And then be back. Actually move over, I’ll need to get into the vent.”

David blinked, then scowled. “I’m not _insisting_ on it, if you don’t want to--”  
“-- I need only say that, I get it. And I am okay with that, David. But you’ve posed an interesting scientific question and I am determined to get to the b--” Trexel visibly changed his mind halfway through the word. “—basics of it. Now, if you’ll excuse me?”  
“Excuse you too-- _ack!”_ David tried to duck away from Trexel’s half-running tackle, but he managed to catch part of David’s shoulder and that gave him enough lift to get his fingers onto the edge of the vent.

With a scrape and a clatter he was away, his semi-maniacal laughter echoing for a minute as he crawled further into the inner-workings of Stellar Firma. It descended into metallic thumps a minute later, and shouting, before he went quiet.

Board. What a vain, horrible, ridiculous man. David couldn’t believe he was going to sleep with him.

He sighed heavily as he stood back up, dusting his onesie where Trexel’s alcohol-sticky shoe had made a print.

I.M.O.G.E.N’s wall panel lit up with a chime. “ _Yikes,_ ” her bright voice said.  
David’s head snapped up, relief flooding through him that he was surprised by. “O-- oh, Imogen! You’re still here!”  
Another chime. “ _I_ _am_ _everywhere, all the time!_ ”  
“Right. Um.” He swallowed nervously, wondering if he was going to get wall-guns pointed at him for the next question. “Where did you... go? You were quiet for a while.”

If there was an analog clock in the room, it’d be ticking loudly in the silence. As it was, he just felt the seconds pass intensely, his internal clone time ticking away in his heart.  
Thankfully, another chime. “ _During moments of consenting intimacy, it is protocol for silent mode to activate. Exceptions included for detection of seditious comments, unorthodox ideas, unauthorized props, or sexual conduct_ _during scheduled_ _working_ _hours._ _All time is company time._ ”

“But-- it is scheduled work hours? And Trexel talks about weird sex things during work... a lot.”  
Chime. “ _Geistman Exceptions applied universally._ ”  
“Ah.” David couldn’t even bring himself to be surprised.

The surprise came later.

Firstly, that Trexel actually came back. Even more surprisingly, he seemed about as sober as David had ever seen him, even more so than about twenty minutes before. Astronomically surprisingly, he actually brought items with him.

It turned out that by ‘supplies’, Trexel meant ‘two trenchcoats to use as sheets and blanket’. They were patterned to match one of his striped onesies. As he laid them out on the floor and kicked them flat, he explained, “Since you were so _weirdly possessive_ over your pod before, I figured we’d be doing this in here. I already had one of these in my bag with me at all times, of course, but finding the other one took a while! I haven’t been back to my own apartments in weeks. It was real dusty in there.”

“Dusty being moldy?”  
“Right.”

David looked at the coats while prudently moving away from Trexel’s flailing kicks. “Again, gross. So, _why_ have you brought coats?”  
“Otherwise you’ll just slide all over the floor like a weird snake, David, and that would make things _way_ too complicated.” Trexel grunted a bit as he reached a particularly stubbornly wrinkled bit of hem.”  
“That’s... fair, I suppose.” David poked at his own face experimentally; he was indeed still quite slippery. “On the upside, we won’t have to bother with all the oiling?”  
“Not having to worry about the oiling _is_ a useful step in the process to skip, yes. … why are you looking at them like that? Distracted by their fashionability? That’s a word.”  
“Oh, absolutely. I just, ah, when you said supplies I thought you meant precautions.”  
Trexel laughed. “Oh, those. Don’t worry! Precautions are for other people,” he said like that was self-explanatory.  
David stared at him. “... no, I’m really going to need more explanations than that.”  
“Hey, woah. Woah. I said _don’t worry,_ David _._ I’ll spell it out for you: Clones can’t acquire any diseases that would transfer to other species, and neither of us have wombs. Is that better? _”  
_“Oh.” David stepped closer to the coat-pile again. “That does help a bit. -- hold on. That implies that _you_ could still transfer any potential diseases to _me_?”  
“You would think! You would think there was that implication. But, no, don’t worry. I got an A+ bill of sexy health two weeks ago from the medical team after I, ah,” Trexel chuckled, “Had to get my stomach pumped again.”  
“... right.” David rubbed his forehead.  
“My liver’s had better years, but my genitals and reproductive system is entirely infection-free.”  
“I got that, thank you.”

“You’re _welcome_. Now, shall we?” Trexel finished flattening the coats and turned to David. Despite the bravado, he seemed shifty.

Or, no, David thought. He recognized shifty on Trexel; the man looked shifty ninety-nine percent of the time. This was something else. Nervous? “Don’t tell me you’re having performance anxiety,” David snarked before he could think better of it.  
Trexel barked a laugh. “Don’t be silly, David, of-- ha!” He chortled. “Of course I don’t-- as if _I_ could ever-- no, of course not. This is going to be the fucking best. Or, the best fucking. One of those two things.”  
“One of those two,” David agreed, a corner of his mouth twitching. “Well. I suppose we should...?” David gestured to the makeshift bed, a bit at a loss. The databases hadn’t really been specific on how one being initiated sex with another. Other than inviting them into your pod for some hot liquid.  
“Ah. Right, of course.” Trexel rubbed his hands together, or possibly rubbed something off of his hands; David didn’t really want to question it. “We’ll start with the Trexel Geistman manouevre.”  
“I hope that doesn’t have to do with the Ten Sales Steps,” David mumbled under his breath, but before he could cough to cover it up, Trexel had crossed the space between them and brought his hands up to the sides of David’s face. David took the rest of the initiative and closed the space completely.

Trexel’s hands were warm, and his lips were as well. The scratch from his weirdly luxurious moustache was an odd feeling but, David decided, not terrible.  
He felt Trexel open his mouth slightly. Why was--? Oh, Board. Unbidden memories of the first time he’d met Harto filtered through the careful block he’d made in his brain. _Eugh_. David pulled back with a shudder.

“David?”

“Let’s _not_ do that,” he said decisively, while suppressing the hell out of the memories. _“_ That with the-- tongue, I mean.”  
“Ah. Well, fair enough.” Trexel paused for a second. “Is there anything else? I forgot to add that, you need to ask what other beings are comfortable with first before you have sex.”  
“Before the oiling?”  
“Before the oiling. Which, as you pointed out before...”  
“... isn’t really a problem for us.” David nodded, his nose just brushing Trexel’s. Truthfully he was a bit distracted by Trexel’s hands still being on his face. It was nice. _Way_ nicer than David had been expecting. Of course it was still Trexel, and his breath still smelled like an unfortunate mix of stagnant space-grain alcohol, but the sustained contact itself made David feel like he was melting a little. (Metaphorically. Not actually being slurrinated. Not yet.)

“So,” Trexel prompted him, and David snapped back to attention from the spiral of doom he’d looked at for a second.  
“So! Right. Um... I’d prefer you kept your shirt on.”  
“I mean, I’m wearing a onesie, David.”  
“Right, yes-- your shirt- _half_ , then. We can just--” David would have to remove his own onesie, of course, since he only had the one that’d been requisitioned to him on his birthday. But Trexel could actually _change_ clothes. “-- recycle the rest,” he finished.  
Trexel sniffed, perhaps offended that he’d suggest such a thing, but didn’t pull back. “I accept your terms, clone.”  
_Don’t_ call _me that,_ David didn’t snap. He pushed the thoughts down; now was not the time to go to the angry place. Trexel was looking at him with something approaching sombreness. “Yes?”

“Do you agree to _my_ terms?”  
“You haven’t said any yet.”  
“Right, well, I was _getting_ to them. We’re not going to use tongues for kissing, _I’m_ going to keep my magnificent nipple-puppies hushed up, and _you..._ ” Trexel paused as if for effect. “You have to swear by the Board to not fall in love with me.”

David stared at him. When the words fully processed, he couldn’t help the incredulous laugh that burbled out of his mouth.  
The man who’d been the bane of his life since David had been flushed down into the planet-design room chair nodded again, serenely. “I know, David, it’s hard to believe that you’d be capable of such a feat of willpower. Given, again, my very great experience with both lovemaking and relationship-having, trust me, it is a _lot_ of willpower. But! I believe in you. It simply wouldn’t do at all for a clone to be in love with me-- I mean, I _am_ Trexel Geistman-- or, anyone, really, that’s pretty outside of the Stellar Firma Employee protocols and clone programming. You’d probably be recycled right away. Or I’d be changed positions and we’d never see each other again-- the point is, we have to be in this together. So to speak.”

“Trexel.” David replied, putting his own hands on the sides of Trexel’s face for emphasis. The impulse to punch him was extreme, but his own curiosity was stronger, and even with the consuming rage that tugged at him David could still feel the gooey warmth from Trexel’s touch. “I can say without any doubt, I agree to that term.”

“Excellent.” Trexel fit their mouths together again, more _oomph_ this time, and they got on with it.  
  
  
*

  
About half an hour passed. David was starting to feel like that was a pattern in his times with Trexel, for some reason. His onesie ended up over the office chair, and the lower half of Trexel’s onesie with its newly-ragged hem was kicked into the shadow under the desk.

Afterwards, Trexel spoke up. His voice was a little hoarser than normal. “Not that I _care,_ David, but um. How was that?”  
David slid around a bit on the trenchcoat, shifting so he could look up at the ceiling of the sales consultants room. He felt-- the normal amount of sticky, and pleasantly tired, kind of like he had when he’d tried counting how many flat-backed upside-downies he could manage in one go. His brain felt good. More than anything else, he felt warm. “... nice. Like a hug, but better.”  
The sex _had_ been nice. Like the kissing, much nicer than David had expected. (And he had much more detail to add into his thoughts about Bathin, now, if he wanted. And re-crochet him. Despite the afterglow, David felt himself flush.)  
“Sex is often considered better hugs, yes,” Trexel replied. He had taken off a record of three pairs of sunglasses when they’d laid down. The last pair was resting on his forehead as he took a drag from a space e-cigarette. (Where had he even gotten that?) A vapour cloud of thin purple that smelled like nebulae floated out of his mouth and was dissipated by the vent.  
David wrinkled his nose. “You could turn your head the other way when you do that.”  
He turned to look at David, his sunglasses clicking against the floor. “But how can I hear you if I don’t look at your face?”  
“That’s-- it’s not like you read my lips, Trexel.”  
“Maybe I do. You can’t prove anything!”

Normally David would’ve said something cutting back, but instead, he just snorted a laugh. Trexel seemed infinitely less aggravating now than he usually did; still annoying, still _Trexel_ , but less likely to cause impulse to murder. David could be content with that, until this wore off. (He wasn’t naive enough to assume that he’d feel this warm and calm for very long. Though...)  
“I have to say, David, this was a good idea you had. Job well done.” Trexel sat up, pooling the blanket-coat around his waist so his nakedness was mostly hidden. “I’ve certainly taught you well.”  
“Thank you,” he replied dryly.  
Trexel nodded at nothing in particular, wriggling around to look back down at him. “Do you think this is, ah. A hobby you’ll keep up with, then? Out of your _approved_ hobbies,” he added with a suspicious glare. His sunglasses slide further down his forehead, pinching the top of his nose.  
David shrugged non-commitally. “I mean, you know--” He said vaguely, “I think it’s pretty alright.”  
“Well, _good_.” Trexel took another huff of his e-cigarette.

“... you know, I, uh. I notice that the Sales Nag Box hasn’t entered its nuclear phase yet.”  
Shifting on the coat again, David looked over on the wall. “That’s true, it hasn’t. ... what does that mean, Trexel?”  
“Nothing!” Trexel scoffed, then quieted. He was looking sideways at David. “I just meant, well, _I_ have quite a bit of time left on my hands, and it’s not like _you_ necessarily have anywhere to go.”  
David raised his eyebrows. “So?” He did get what the man was getting at, but he felt like dragging it out as much as possible. Seeing Trexel un-dangerously uncomfortable was a rare thing which David somewhat malevolently cherished.  
Trexel coughed, sending out a plume of glitter. It seemed like the vapour’s colour changed each time he exhaled. “I could go get some alcohol, of course, that’s just as well-- Board, I haven’t had one in _hours_ \-- but, erm. Before I go. Hypothetically. Would you like to have sex with me, David?”  
“Again,” David corrected.  
“ _Again_ , yes, fine.”  
David considered for a moment. “You know what, Trexel? Yes, I will. Under two conditions!” He said quickly, pointing his finger.  
Trexel had visibly perked up when he said ‘yes’, now blinked. “Ah. What conditions are those?”  
“Along with the previously-agreed on conditions-- that when you get into the office tomorrow, you are at least this... early.” Trexel waved his hand around to indicate ‘sure, go on’, and David actually felt himself give him a small smile.  
“And?”  
“And you bring me a coffee.”

**Author's Note:**

> and they hook up again, possibly several more times, before going to make an absolute space-dog’s breakfast out of a prospective client interview~
> 
>  ~~horrible~~ fun fact: mold in space habitats is a real problem! astronauts on the ISS have recorded certain strains of fungus that grow inside the station, and outside (in the cold vacuum of space), which are radiation-resistant and very difficult to clean or kill.


End file.
